The non-negotiable aspects of the ‘replace’ part of health care include some key points that will not bode well for most people

• The rich no longer have to pay into Medicare [why is this a good thing?] while everyone else still does.
• Corporations no longer have to promise to minimize profits on health insurance [profits drive companies to cover only the sick, include high deductibles, refuse to sell to ‘risky’ people, and add cost while reducing coverage]
• Subsidies will move away from helping those with limited financial resources to helping older people more
• Medicaid expansion will end – and responsibility will move to the states without the funding behind it

Hmmmmmm

The changes will drive competition – but is health care really a place for for-profit motivations?

If you own the rights to a treatment, drug or cure, wouldn’t a for-profit model drive you to charge as much as possible?  If you can charge $1,000,000 a treatment instead of $100, you can make the same amount of money with one patient as you would with 10,000 patients.  And business knows your margins are best when the cost / transaction is low.

If your life is on the line, do you shop for the cheapest or the best care if you can afford both?

Mergers were growing – which reduce competition – and there were no provisions that discouraged mergers.

And the companies that pulled out of the Health Exchange did so because they couldn’t find a way to make enough profits.  It wasn’t because the people didn’t buy their products.  It was because people bought their products and used them.

And the cost for doctors and hospitals go up by a lot if they have to deal with collecting money and writing off bad debt.  That emergency room care is the least efficient, most expensive way to get non-emergency care. People who think it is free because they can’t turn you away don’t really understand how it works.  To get care, you sign paperwork promising to pay the bills.  If you don’t, the hospital can come after you.  And they can sell your debt to debt collectors.  The ‘cost’ of uninsured and under-insured patients is like the cost of shoplifting in retail.  To stay in business, others must cover the cost of those that can’t pay for services.  Which means costs go up for all.

And doctors can’t practice their best medicine if their patients can’t afford treatments.

Perhaps the real issue with the ‘repeal’ is that it is being crafted by people who firmly believe that only a for-profit, ‘free-market’ system works.

But how ‘free’ is the market if your options are to buy or die?

The proposed changes are great for the already well off.  They get more tax help for the coverage they can already afford, they get better tax breaks for hiding money in Health Savings Accounts so that they can use it for medical care, pass it along to their heirs, and avoid ever paying taxes on this money.  And they can go back to getting Medicare for free – not having to pay in while they earn millions and get a capped insurance premium once they are eligible.  Great for them.

But for the rest of us, it keeps us in a model where we need great health care but can’t really afford it.  Even if we don’t buy an iPhone……

The sales pitch will go into full force.  They hope to scare or cajole you into going along.

They will claim they have a mandate to do this.

That is the biggest lie.  The President ran on NOT doing what the proposed bill does – reduce care and increase cost and hurt Medicare and Medicaid.  More people voted for democrats, 3rd parties or opted to sit this one out than voted for replublicans.

And they are pushing this through quickly.  Because most of us are catching on to what a very very very bad deal this repeal thing really s.

They had 8 years and the reason they have no plan is that they don’t believe that you should get ANY help buying insurance.  You should be on your own.  This is the 1st step in getting rid of Medicare and Social Security, programs they have never liked.

When you start with helping those who don’t need help, you are signaling your real intentions.  Which is to take a bit for yourself, and screw the rest of us.  All under the banner of ‘conservative values’.

Well I value life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ALL.  And that means I think we need to find a way where we focus on how to provide quality care for all – without consideration for how much they can pay.  Because when it comes to providing health care, equal should mean equal.